Related Research Articles
Galileo was an American robotic space program that studied the planet Jupiter and its moons, as well as several other Solar System bodies. Named after the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, the Galileo spacecraft consisted of an orbiter and an entry probe. It was delivered into Earth orbit on October 18, 1989 by Space ShuttleAtlantis on the STS-34 mission, and arrived at Jupiter on December 7, 1995, after gravitational assist flybys of Venus and Earth, and became the first spacecraft to orbit Jupiter. It launched the first probe into Jupiter, directly measuring its atmosphere. Despite suffering major antenna problems, Galileo achieved the first asteroid flyby, of 951 Gaspra, and discovered the first asteroid moon, Dactyl, around 243 Ida. In 1994, Galileo observed Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9's collision with Jupiter.
Voyager 1 is a space probe launched by NASA on September 5, 1977, as part of the Voyager program to study the outer Solar System and interstellar space beyond the Sun's heliosphere. Launched 16 days after its twin Voyager 2, Voyager 1 has been operating for 45 years, 3 months and 29 days as of January 4, 2023 UTC [refresh]. It communicates through NASA's Deep Space Network to receive routine commands and to transmit data to Earth. Real-time distance and velocity data is provided by NASA and JPL. At a distance of 158.79 AU (14.760 billion mi) from Earth as of November 7, 2022, it is the most distant human-made object from Earth.
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, while being slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus, and it has been observed since prehistoric times. It was named after Jupiter, the chief deity of ancient Roman religion.
Europa, or Jupiter II, is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet of all the 80 known moons of Jupiter. It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and was named after Europa, the Phoenician mother of King Minos of Crete and lover of Zeus.
Ganymede, a satellite of Jupiter, is the largest and most massive of the Solar System's moons. The ninth-largest object of the Solar System, it is the largest without a substantial atmosphere. It has a diameter of 5,268 km (3,273 mi), making it 26 percent larger than the planet Mercury by volume, although it is only 45 percent as massive. Possessing a metallic core, it has the lowest moment of inertia factor of any solid body in the Solar System and is the only moon known to have a magnetic field. Outward from Jupiter, it is the seventh satellite and the third of the Galilean moons, the first group of objects discovered orbiting another planet. Ganymede orbits Jupiter in roughly seven days and is in a 1:2:4 orbital resonance with the moons Europa and Io, respectively.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Orbiter (JIMO) was a proposed NASA spacecraft designed to explore the icy moons of Jupiter. The main target was Europa, where an ocean of liquid water may harbor alien life. Ganymede and Callisto, which are now thought to have liquid, salty oceans beneath their icy surfaces, were also targets of interest for the probe.
Io, or Jupiter I, is the innermost and third-largest of the four Galilean moons of the planet Jupiter. Slightly larger than Earth’s moon, Io is the fourth-largest moon in the Solar System, has the highest density of any moon, the strongest surface gravity of any moon, and the lowest amount of water of any known astronomical object in the Solar System. It was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and was named after the mythological character Io, a priestess of Hera who became one of Zeus's lovers.
Juno is a NASA space probe orbiting the planet Jupiter. It was built by Lockheed Martin and is operated by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on August 5, 2011 UTC, as part of the New Frontiers program. Juno entered a polar orbit of Jupiter on July 5, 2016, UTC, to begin a scientific investigation of the planet. After completing its mission, Juno will be intentionally deorbited into Jupiter's atmosphere.
The exploration of Jupiter has been conducted via close observations by automated spacecraft. It began with the arrival of Pioneer 10 into the Jovian system in 1973, and, as of 2016, has continued with eight further spacecraft missions. All of these missions were undertaken by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and all but two were flybys taking detailed observations without landing or entering orbit. These probes make Jupiter the most visited of the Solar System's outer planets as all missions to the outer Solar System have used Jupiter flybys. On 5 July 2016, spacecraft Juno arrived and entered the planet's orbit—the second craft ever to do so. Sending a craft to Jupiter is difficult, mostly due to large fuel requirements and the effects of the planet's harsh radiation environment.
The exploration of Io, Jupiter's innermost Galilean and third-largest moon, began with its discovery in 1610 and continues today with Earth-based observations and visits by spacecraft to the Jupiter system. Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was the first to record an observation of Io on January 8, 1610, though Simon Marius may have also observed Io at around the same time. During the 17th century, observations of Io and the other Galilean satellites helped with the measurement of longitude by map makers and surveyors, with validation of Kepler's Third Law of planetary motion, and with measurement of the speed of light. Based on ephemerides produced by astronomer Giovanni Cassini and others, Pierre-Simon Laplace created a mathematical theory to explain the resonant orbits of three of Jupiter's moons, Io, Europa, and Ganymede. This resonance was later found to have a profound effect on the geologies of these moons. Improved telescope technology in the late 19th and 20th centuries allowed astronomers to resolve large-scale surface features on Io as well as to estimate its diameter and mass.
JunoCam is the visible-light camera/telescope onboard NASA's Juno spacecraft currently orbiting Jupiter. The camera is operated by the JunoCam Digital Electronics Assembly (JDEA). Both the camera and JDEA were built by Malin Space Science Systems. JunoCam takes a swath of imaging as the spacecraft rotates; the camera is fixed to the spacecraft, so as it rotates, it gets one sweep of observation. It has a field of view of 58 degrees with four filters.
The atmosphere of Jupiter is the largest planetary atmosphere in the Solar System. It is mostly made of molecular hydrogen and helium in roughly solar proportions; other chemical compounds are present only in small amounts and include methane, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and water. Although water is thought to reside deep in the atmosphere, its directly measured concentration is very low. The nitrogen, sulfur, and noble gas abundances in Jupiter's atmosphere exceed solar values by a factor of about three.
Laplace-P was a proposed orbiter and lander by the Russian Federal Space Agency designed to study the Jovian moon system and explore Ganymede with a lander.
The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) is an interplanetary spacecraft in development by the European Space Agency (ESA) with Airbus Defence and Space as the main contractor. The mission will study three of Jupiter's Galilean moons: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa all of which are thought to have significant bodies of liquid water beneath their surfaces, making them potentially habitable environments.
Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) is an instrument on the Juno spacecraft in orbit of the planet Jupiter. It is an image spectrometer and was contributed by Italy. Similar instruments are on ESA Rosetta, Venus Express, and Cassini-Huygens missions. The primary goal of JIRAM is to probe the upper layers of Jupiter's atmosphere down to pressures of 5–7 bars at infrared wavelengths in the 2–5 μm interval using an imager and a spectrometer. The Jupiter's atmosphere and auroral regions are targeted for study. In particular it has been designed to study the dynamics and chemistry in the atmosphere, perhaps determining the how Jovian hot spots form.
Susan G. Finley, a native Californian, has been an employee of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) since January 1958, making her the longest-serving woman in NASA. Two days before Explorer 1 was launched, Finley began her career with the laboratory as a human computer, calculating rocket launch trajectories by hand. She now serves as a subsystem engineer for NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN). At JPL, she has participated in the exploration of the Moon, the Sun, all the planets, and other bodies in the Solar System.
Microwave Radiometer (MWR) is an instrument on the Juno orbiter sent to planet Jupiter. MWR is a multi-wavelength microwave radiometer for making observations of Jupiter's deep atmosphere. MWR can observe radiation from 1.37 to 50 cm in wavelength, from 600 MHz to 22 GHz in frequencies. This supports its goal of observing the previously unseen atmospheric features and chemical abundances hundreds of miles/km into Jupiter's atmosphere. MWR is designed to detect six different frequencies in that range using separate antennas.
Juno Radiation Vault is a compartment inside the Juno spacecraft that houses much of the probe's electronics and computers, and is intended to offer increased protection of radiation to the contents as the spacecraft endures the radiation environment at planet Jupiter. The Juno Radiation Vault is roughly a cube, with walls made of 1 cm thick titanium metal, and each side having an area of about a square meter. The vault weighs about 200 kg (500 lbs). Inside the vault are the main command and data handling and power control boxes, along with 20 other electronic boxes. The vault should reduce the radiation exposure by about 800 times, as the spacecraft is exposed to an anticipated 20 million rads of radiation It does not stop all radiation, but significantly reduces it in order to limit damage to the spacecraft's electronics.
The Europa Lander is a proposed astrobiology mission concept by NASA to send a lander to Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter. If funded and developed as a large strategic science mission, it would be launched in 2027 to complement the studies by the Europa Clipper orbiter mission and perform analyses on site.
References
- 1 2 3 4 Mandelbaum, Ryan F. (February 28, 2018), "Meet the Woman Who Guides NASA's Juno Probe Through Jupiter's Killer Radiation", Gizmodo
- 1 2 "Heidi Becker", IEEE Xplore, IEEE, retrieved 2022-06-12
- ↑ Wall, Mike (June 9, 2021), "Ganymede Looks Glorious in New Images from NASA's Juno Mission: The spacecraft captured the first close-up views of the solar system's largest moon in more than 20 years", Scientific American
- 1 2 3 Chang, Kenneth (June 14, 2021), "Mushballs and a Great Blue Spot: What Lies Beneath Jupiter's Pretty Clouds: NASA's Juno probe is beginning an extended mission that may not have been possible if it hadn't experienced engine trouble when it first arrived at the giant planet", The New York Times
- ↑ Grossman, Lisa (August 5, 2020), "'Exotic' lightning crackles across Jupiter's cloud tops: The flashes of light could form thanks to ammonia antifreeze", Science News
- 1 2 Dvorsky, George (August 6, 2020), "Shallow Lightning and Mushy Hail: Violent Storms on Jupiter Are Weirder Than We Thought", Gizmodo
- 1 2 Crane, Leah (August 5, 2020), "Strange lightning on Jupiter may be caused by ammonia snowballs", New Scientist
- ↑ Howell, Elizabeth (August 17, 2020), "Violent thunderstorms on Jupiter may form 'mushballs' that fall from the sky", Space.com
